DeskFerry Logo

Ask while they still love the kitchen

Final payment lands, the punch list is closed, and a few days later the ask goes out — naming their actual job, in your words, with the direct link that opens straight to the review box.

Start freeSee how it works

Carrick primary bath — handover

Ask due Thursday

  1. 26 Apr

    Punch list closed — last item was the shower door seal

  2. 28 Apr

    Final invoice sent, $4,480

  3. 2 May

    Payment cleared in QuickBooks

  4. 5 May

    Review ask drafted — three days after payment

  5. 12 May

    One reminder if nothing yet, then it stops

Ask on the day of payment and it reads as a condition of the invoice. Ask in July and they've forgotten your name.

Works with

  • QuickBooks
  • Xero
  • Stripe
  • Gmail
  • Google Sheets
  • WhatsApp

It watches for the final payment in QuickBooks or Xero — or in Stripe if you take cards, which is the one place this can pick a payment up the same day rather than waiting for the next check.

The chore

How this goes right now

  1. You finish the bathroom. The client is genuinely delighted — they say so, standing in the doorway, and they mean it. They pay the final invoice within a week. And then you both move on, because you have three other jobs running and they have a life.

  2. Six weeks later somebody says you should really get more reviews, and you sit down to ask a handful of past clients. It's awkward. You're emailing someone you haven't spoken to in a month and a half about a job they've stopped thinking about, and it reads exactly like what it is — a favour being asked cold.

  3. Meanwhile the moment when they'd have written you four paragraphs without being asked twice came and went in early May. Nobody was there to catch it, because catching it means noticing that a payment cleared and remembering to do something about it three days later.

The difference

The ask is easy. The timing is everything.

Asking when you remember
Asking on the right day
Asks happen in batches, weeks after the job
The clock starts when final payment actually clears
The email is generic because the details have faded
The ask names their job — the room, the thing that went well
No link, or a link to your profile rather than the review box
Direct link that opens the review box, not your profile
Asked once, never followed up
One gentle reminder a week later, then it stops
No idea which clients were asked and which weren't
Every ask logged, so nobody gets asked twice

Try it

Walk through it yourself

This is the actual shape of the workflow — the same trigger, the same steps, the same draft waiting for your say-so. Click through it.

Request reviews after handover

Scheduled checkQuickBooks

Final payment cleared, three days ago

Daily check found invoice 2259 paid in full on 2 May. The Carrick primary bath is closed out and the punch list was signed off on the 26th.

What it does

  1. Look for final invoices that have been paid in full

    Invoice 2259, $4,480, cleared 2 May. Nothing outstanding on the job, and no retainage held.

    QuickBooks

  2. Check the job is genuinely finished, not just paid

    Punch list closed 26 April, last item the shower door seal. No open callbacks. No previous review request logged.

    Google Sheets

  3. Pull the details that make the ask personal

    Primary bath, 1140 Ester St, eleven weeks on site, tile they chose themselves after two false starts.

    Google Sheets

  4. Draft the ask, timed three days after payment

    Short, specific to their job, with your direct Google review link. No incentive, no template language.

    Gmail

Draft email — nothing has been sent

To
Joanne Carrick
Subject
Thanks again — and a small favour

Hi Joanne — just wanted to say thanks again for having us. That bathroom came out really well, and the tile you held out for was absolutely the right call. I'm glad you didn't let me talk you into the easier one.

Small favour if you have two minutes: would you mind leaving us a Google review? Most of our work comes from people finding us that way, and a few sentences from someone who's actually had us in the house is worth more than anything we could say about ourselves.

The link below opens straight to the review box — it shouldn't take more than a minute.

Either way, thanks for a straightforward job. Give me a shout if anything at all comes up with it.

Direct review link — opens the review box

Send this to Joanne?

The detail about the tile is the bit that makes this work, and it's the bit most worth checking — it's pulled from your job notes and it needs to be right. Getting a specific wrong is worse than being generic.

Once you approveGoogle Sheets

Sent, logged, and one reminder queued

It sends from your inbox. The job is marked as asked, so nobody chases her again by accident. If nothing has appeared in a week, one short reminder gets drafted — and after that it stops for good.

That's the whole workflow.

It drafts, you approve, nothing sends on its own.

Start free

How it works

What it's actually doing

A daily check against your accounts package. QuickBooks and Xero have no event triggers — Stripe does, so card payments can fire this the same day.

  1. 1
    • QuickBooks
    • Xero
    • Stripe

    It waits for money, not for a job status

    The trigger is the final invoice being paid in full, because that's the most reliable signal a job actually finished well. Someone who has paid you is someone with nothing outstanding to complain about.

  2. 2
    • Google Sheets
    • ExExcel

    It checks the job is really closed

    Paid isn't the same as finished. It checks the punch list is closed and there are no open callbacks before asking anybody for anything, because a review request landing while a snag is outstanding is genuinely damaging.

  3. 3
    • Google Sheets

    It waits a few days, deliberately

    Asking on the day the payment clears reads as a condition of the invoice. Asking three or four days later reads as an afterthought from someone pleased with how it went. That gap is doing real work.

  4. 4
    • Gmail
    • WhWhatsApp

    It writes something specific and links properly

    The room, the thing that went well, the decision they made that you'd back again — pulled from your job notes. And the direct review link that opens the box, not your profile page, because every extra click costs you reviews.

You stay in control

It drafts a personal note. You make sure it's true.

This is the page where a wrong detail does the most damage. An email thanking someone for a job that went badly, or praising a tile choice that was actually a running argument, is worse than never asking. So every ask waits for you.

  1. Step one

    It drafts

  2. Step two — you

    You read it and approve

  3. Step three

    Only then does it send

Nothing sends on its own

The draft waits. You know things about that job that aren't written down anywhere — that the client's mother was ill, or that the last fortnight was tense — and thirty seconds of your judgement is what stops a tone-deaf email going out.

It won't ask if anything is open

An outstanding punch list item, an unresolved callback, or a disputed invoice all stop the ask entirely. It'll tell you why it held back rather than quietly skipping the job.

It never offers an incentive

No discounts, no gift cards, no entry into anything. Incentivised reviews breach Google's policies and can get your reviews removed or your profile penalised, so it won't draft one even if you ask it to.

It never writes the review

It asks. It does not suggest wording, offer a draft for them to paste, or hint at what to mention. What the client writes is the client's.

Setup

What setting this up involves

  1. 1

    Connect

    • QuickBooks, Xero or Stripe — wherever final payment shows up
    • Gmail or Outlook, to send from
    • Your job tracker, for punch list status and job details
    • WhatsApp Business, if some clients are better reached that way
  2. 2

    Tell it how you work

    • Your direct Google review link — the one that opens the review box
    • How long to wait after payment; three to five days is the sweet spot
    • What counts as job closed, so it never asks over an open snag
    • Which clients to never ask, because you know the ones
  3. 3

    Then it runs

    About 20 minutes, once

    The fiddliest bit is finding your direct review link rather than your profile URL. It's worth getting right — the difference in completion rate between the two is substantial.

Edge cases

Where it's careful, and what it won't do

What it handles

  • Jobs that ended badly but got paid

    Payment isn't proof of satisfaction. If the job had a dispute, a warranty callback, or a change order argument on the record, it holds the ask and flags it for you rather than inviting a public account of a bad experience.

  • Repeat clients

    Somebody on their third job with you shouldn't get three review requests. It checks whether they've been asked before and, if they have, either skips them or drafts something that acknowledges they already left one.

  • Payment in instalments

    Draws and progress payments aren't handover. It waits for the final invoice on the job to be settled, not just the most recent payment, so nobody gets asked at the halfway point.

  • Clients who won't write online

    Some people simply won't, and chasing them twice is how a good relationship gets slightly worse. One reminder after a week, then it stops permanently and marks them as asked.

What it does not do

  • It doesn't post or manage reviews

    No connection to your Google Business Profile. It sends an email with a link — it can't see whether a review appeared, respond to one, or do anything to a review once it exists.

  • It doesn't filter for good reviews

    No surveying people first to see who's happy before deciding who gets the link. That's review gating, it breaches Google's policies, and it's dishonest. Everyone whose job closed properly gets the same ask.

  • It doesn't chase

    One ask, one reminder, done. A review is a favour, and a third email turns a favour into an imposition.

  • It doesn't write testimonials for your website

    Nothing invented, nothing paraphrased into a quote. If you want testimonials, they come from what clients actually wrote, with their permission.

Time back

An hour or two a month, and considerably more reviews

Time back
An hour or two a month, and considerably more reviews
Spent on
The work that bills
What it costs
$19 / monthStarterplan — see what’s included

How that’s worked out: Based on 4–8 jobs closing a month at roughly 10 minutes each to look up the details and write something personal. The hours are trivial — the reason to do this is that the ask currently happens for maybe one job in four, and moving that to nearly all of them is the entire point.

Fair questions

The things contractors ask first

Asking for reviews feels like begging.

It feels that way when you ask cold, weeks later, about a job they've stopped thinking about. Asking three days after a job they're pleased with, in an email that mentions the actual room, reads completely differently — and most clients are glad to, they just need reminding it's useful to you.

What if it emails someone whose job went badly?

It won't send anything on its own, and it holds the ask entirely if there's a dispute, an open punch list item or a warranty callback on record. Payment alone isn't treated as evidence the job went well, because it isn't.

Could this get my Google profile in trouble?

Not the way it's built. It never offers an incentive, never surveys people first to pick out the happy ones, and never drafts wording for the client. All three of those breach Google's policies, and the tool won't do them even if you'd like it to.

More construction chores

Other things that keep falling off the list

The same job in other trades and industries

FAQ

Questions worth answering properly

When exactly does the ask go out?

A few days after the final invoice is paid in full — three to five is the usual setting. Same-day reads like a condition of the invoice; a month later and the enthusiasm has gone. It also confirms the punch list is closed before asking at all.

How soon after payment does it notice?

It depends where payment lands. QuickBooks and Xero don't publish event triggers, so those run as a daily check. Stripe does, so if a client pays by card it can pick that up the same day.

What if there's still a snag outstanding?

It doesn't ask. An open punch list item, an unresolved callback or a disputed invoice all hold the request, and it tells you why rather than silently skipping the job.

Will it offer clients a discount for reviewing?

No. Incentivised reviews breach Google's policies and risk your reviews being removed or your profile penalised. It won't draft one, and that isn't configurable.

Can it tell whether the review got left?

No. It has no connection to your Google Business Profile, so it can't see what appeared. It sends one reminder a week later regardless, then stops — which is why the reminder is written to be fine to receive if you've already left one.

Can it send by WhatsApp instead of email?

For clients you already message that way, yes. It needs an approved template and their consent, which for someone whose bathroom you just finished is generally straightforward — but it's a real constraint, not a formality.

Catch the moment they're happiest

Connect your accounts package and your job tracker. The next job that closes out gets an ask drafted at the right time.

Start free